A Comparison Of Upcoming YA Movies to the ‘Twilight Saga’ Includes ‘BEAUTIFUL CREATURES’ and ‘THE HOST’

It’s no surprise with the influx of movies based on YA novels that they’re going to be compared to past movies in the same genre, especially when some of them have similar premise, or one would assume so. While fans can argue up to their eyeballs about the dissimilarity between the Twilight movies to the ones that are coming, here’s a short breakdown of 2 of the movies that are in this list of comparisons.

‘BEAUTIFUL CREATURES’

BASED ON: The first book in author’s Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s “Caster Chronicles”

HOW TWI-LIKE IS IT? Similar enough to feel comfortable to Twi-hards, but the characters are a little more grounded.

“Beautiful Creatures” wears its heart on its sleeve.

“This is a love story, if they want to show up with their girlfriends they will,” says director Richard LaGravenese. “If not, hopefully the girls will come alone.”

Judging by the starry-eyed tweens and teens that have approached actor Alden Ehrenreich, who plays Ethan, a human teen who falls in love with a witch torn between good or evil, they’ll be coming either way.

“I try to block the context which this was occurring as much as possible and just focus on the story,” says the 23-year-old actor. “There was a screening in Russia and people came to my hotel and had photos for me to sign.”

It’s hard to give an actual comparison being that the movie hasn’t released in theaters just yet (only a few more days left!). However, you can feel the similarities in certain aspects, such as the paranormal stuff. But you can also try to compare it to the Harry Potter series, considering this movie deals with witches, or casters in this case, so no, this is very un-“Twi-like.” What I like about this is that the older characters (or parental figures) in here play a much bigger part in the teens’ life than they did in the Twilight series.

‘THE HOST’

BASED ON: Stephenie Meyer’s followup to “Twilight”

HOW TWI-LIKE IS IT? As close as you can get since Meyer’s involved.

Saoirse Ronan may want to ask her agent why she’s only getting one salary for “The Host.” The 18-year-old New York-born actress plays a human girl whose body is taken over and befriended by an alien soul who’s part of an invading race out to enslave all of humanity. There’s a love rectangle that trumps “Twilight’s” triangle.

To help Ronan find her inner conflict, director Andrew Niccol had her record dialogue for her human character and played it back to her when she was in alien mode.

“She wore an earpiece the whole time hidden in her ear where we could play her dialogue to her and she could have conversations with herself,” explains Niccol. “So the only people who could hear it were Saoirse and me.

“There was one guy who was basically dedicated to pushing a button for the line to play in her head at the right time, so it became an art,” he added. “So she’s actually listening to herself and having a conversation with herself. It was freaky to see. “

Okay, I guess the similarities are there, but it seems to be told in a much different way. Yes, there’s still the love triangle, or quadrangle, but these characters are very human, even if one of them is not from earth. The premise of the story is also just more mature and I very appreciate the sci-fi aspect of it. It does help, though, to have such a talented actress as Saoirse Ronan star as the main protagonist.

Firstly, it’s a bit unfair to actually judge a movie just because it falls into the range of a similar series of which you disliked. Understandable, but not quite fair. Unless you just don’t like romance, in which case, then yes, you might not like these movies. Obviously, these movies are targeted to female audiences, but that’s not to say that all men won’t enjoy the story, especially if it’s well acted, well directed, and well written. It may end up that neither of these movies may draw as many fan-crazy people as the Twilight Saga, but the stories are very much worth giving them a try anyway.